TENNIS stars from around the world have travelled to Swan Hill for their shot at $US50,000 in the 2024 Swan Hill International.
Almost 100 competitors from as far away as New Zealand, Japan, China and Germany made the trip to grace Swan Hill’s beloved grass courts.
A stop on the Australian Pro Tour, the Swan Hill International is one of 28 professional International Tennis Federation and ATP challenger tournaments held each year.
Swan Hill Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club president Christian Devlin said “the vibes have been great”.
“This is the second year we’ve hosted the event so we’ve had a few people coming back for their second time,” Devlin said.
“We’ve actually got that next level of players who are working towards direct entry into the grand slams.
“The calibre of player that we see here is just world class — people who are potentially about to break into the top 100.
“We’ve even got a few grand slam-winning coaches here.”
Swan Hill’s magnificent grass courts have impressed athletes once again, with Devlin saying they were of an elite standard.
“Athletes have been saying that ours are the best grass courts they’ve played on,” he said.
“We’ve heard more than a couple of comparisons to Wimbledon, which is great.
“The feedback has just been that these courts are in far better shape than they were in Mildura last week.
“We’ve certainly kept Tennis Australia happy, which is great for our club and the area.
“They are more than happy to invest in the area and come back and give us tournaments that will keep our club relevant.”
Following the competition’s qualifiers, round-of-16 action started with a bang and saw more than a couple of big upsets.
Eighteen-year-old Gold Coast young-gun Emerson Jones claimed a big scalp in her round-of-16 match-up, defeating second-seeded Chinese player Jia-Jing Lu 4-6 7-6 (3) 6-2.
In the men’s draw, Japanese native Shintaro Imai defeated his fourth-seeded compatriot Hiroki Moriya in three sets, 4-6 7-5 6-3.
Top-seeded Murray Bridge player Alex Bolt defeated Corey Gaal in three sets, while women’s top seed Maddison Inglis defeated Amelia Zyblerman in just two sets.
In the doubles, men’s top seeds Blake Bayldon and Kody Pearson defeated Thomas Braithwaite and Matthew Woerndle after a first-set tie-break, 7-6 (4) 6-3.
The cross-Tasman pairing of New Zealand’s Monique Barry and Australian Alana Parnaby showed why they were the top seeds with a 6-0 7-6 (4) win over Bianca Compuesto and Jamie Lau.
With finals match-ups still to come this weekend, Devlin urged everyone to get down and enjoy the high-level of tennis.
“This afternoon is a massive opportunity to get down and watch some amazing tennis,” he said.
“People should come down and have a cold drink on the Friday night, and then come back and enjoy the pointy end of the tournament throughout the weekend.
“We’ll have couple of mini-grandstands and the weather will be perfect.
“This is a really great opportunity for people to watch some great tennis without having to drive all the way down to Melbourne.”
